Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1887-03-27
a Mistake Corrected = Reply 10
To he Editor Of The Dispatch:''


To he Editor Of the Dispatch:
find. owing to absence from home
ard an unusual press OF work on my re-
tu1n, that in my article published in
the Dispatch of the ODD ultlmo L have
answered the wrong man.. IL. [. in
stead of J. G. l..
beg your pardon, J. j.. c., and ]
beg you, J. G. T., to allow me the pri-
vilege of answering a little more at
leisure and under different circum-
stances the structures you have been
pleased to make upon an article of
mine, maintaining that moral and in
tellectual development are necessary to
the most perfect physical condition Of
tie human system.
Auart from all other considerations,
and merely as a question OF health,
mental training has a powerful inhu-
cree upon the bodily functions. II en-
aJlcs the system 10 bear a greater de-
0rcc of fatigue. 1t is a well-established
fact that slender and delicate youths
who have been educated to the profess
sion OF civil engineering often bear the
fatigue of walking and climbing--inci-
dent to their Professionalism than
their uneducated assistants, who are
far stronger and more accustomed to
toll In the late war it was observed
that clerks and statesmen from desks
and counters kept up-owing to their
superior mCrdte-on long and Sc
we're marches as well or better than
boys from the country who were ac-
customed to follow the pillow.
IT Cno6tes the system, better to resist
disease. The intelligent physician I'M
dorstands the advantage he gains in
having an intellectual patient instead
of british, ignorant one. He is aware
how powerfully the mind acts upon the
body, and endeavors, by calm and con-
fdent demeanor, and by kind and
cheering words, to call to his assistance
the sustaining qualities of hope and
cheeTfulness.
II ADDS to lOngcyity. Statistics show
ing that professional men, rs a rule,
live longest prove this assertion beyond
a doubt. The elephant owes his lon
geyity as much to his sagacity and his
enormous brain as TO his great size
and strength, as J. j.. c. asserts, just
as the moth which perishes in the flame
dies for the want of it.
J. c. L. considers the brain as only
one point Gin the tripod OF life,
and probably the least vital of the
three" referring, of course, to the
heart and lungs of the other two. If
j. c. l.. should meet grizzly in the
Rockies, or tiger in the jungle
which Heaven forbid-and act upon
this presumption, his life would pro-
badly be the forfeit. A ball through
the lungs of his foe would give no Sc
curity, even through the heart might
leave him power to make a bound
which would throw him upon his vic
tim. But when it crashes through
the brain, the seat of motion and i'm
pulse, the animal sinks quivering and
helpless in the agonies of death.
Of all the organs of the body the
brain is the most vital, in the largest
sense, and important. The athlete, as
well as the moralist, should learn its
uses, and the relations it bears to the
other organs of the system.
Let j. G. l.. think better OF it /; let
him not only learn from Professor
Blake chow to get strong but also
how to be courteous how to be polite,
and to remember that ridicule is not
argument, but, on the contrary, An OBJ
stacle to the free, full, and philosophic
investigation of truth which science de-
mards of her yotaries. NJ. ID.